Replacing a laptop with a tablet: Week Four

Robert Schoenberger/The Plain DealerThe Plain Dealer's Business department was mostly empty on New Year's Eve Eve as most editors and reporters had the day off. This picture was taken with the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computer that I am testing as a possible replacement for a laptop.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There's a very old joke in the computer world about four nerds sitting in a dead car. The electrical engineer says the car needs a new battery. The mechanical engineer blames the transmission. The chemical engineer blames the fuel system.

The software designer then says, "Why don't we all get out the car, shut the doors, wait a minute, then get back inside and try again?

That's a long way of saying that a lot of the problems I've been having in trying to use this Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computer as a laptop replacement suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.

Having to hand-code each line of text in HTML? As far as I can tell, the latest Android update to Firefox's browser cured that. At first, I thought the tablet's sudden ability to work well with Cleveland.com's software was because of some system update on our side. But Firefox is still the only browser that works well.

And just as suddenly as the blog software began working properly, so did our webmail system.

I was trying to show my colleague Michelle McFee (Twitter:@mjarboe) the problems I'd been having with webmail, but when I showed her how I could see email subject lines but not open the individual messages, the tablet turned me into a liar. The mail popped up in new windows, just like it does on my laptop.

On the down side, the updated browser is a tad slower. There's a slighty but noticeable lag when I type. Still, it's a much faster experience than hand-coding each line.

In addition, a feature that lets me write my entries in a text editor or QuickOffice then paste them into our blog software also began working. Typically, I write my entries directly into the blog system, but if I'm working with poor or no wireless access, I could write my entries in another program and easily paste them into this system.

The big test for how this all works in the real world is just over a week away. The North American International Auto Show in Detroit starts a week from Monday, but I'll be in Detroit on Sunday, Jan. 8, the cover some of the preliminary events.

At this point, I've extremely optimistic that I won't need my laptop much if at all. The big questions that I still need to answer are things like battery life, ease of use in crowded rooms, the ability to easily capture video and audio and simiilar functional issues.

The tablet is now passing the compatibility test, so let's bring on the functional questions.

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